Bonsai!

I got this as a gift:

It’s a candy kit to make an edible bonsai! Start by kneading the chocolate caramel to make it soft:

Gently fill the molds with the candy:

After a half hour in the freezer it had solidified:

While I was trimming the flash Kristin was cooking a green sponge cake. It was as easy as powder and water mixed together and microwaved. It looked… unusual:

But stone the crows it looked convincing when broken apart and placed onto the branches:

And here’s the finished product (which was about 2 inches tall):

Looks good enough to eat doesn’t it?

And we did! It wasn’t bad at all; basically chocolate caramel mixed with cake. Easily one of the best candy food kits I’ve ever made – or eaten 🙂

Ramen 8: World of Chook!

Time for more chicken ramen!

Lucky Me Chicken (300 Calories, 14 g fat, 1410 mg sodium)

This is a weirdly tasting product, vaguely like ‘Chinese food’ but not at all like (artificial) chicken. The more I ate the greasier it tasted, and about halfway through it had become so repulsive I couldn’t finish it. But I suspect this was more me than the product, and it may be a taste enjoyed by some? An unsure 4/10.

Mama (260 Calories, 11 g fat, 1420 mg sodium)

Another imported product, this time for the Thai market. Once again this tasted nothing like the ‘chicken’ taste I’m used to, and instead was reminiscent of burned toast. The broth was weirdly dark and oily, and the noodles gelatinous. One of the worst I’ve tasted in the dozens I’ve eaten so far. An easy 0/10.

Tradition Chicken Style Noodle Bowl (340 Calories, 15 g fat, 1430 mg sodium)

The last two products by this manufacturer were bad, but I wondered if one of them had a defect since it didn’t contain any flavor. So when I opened this larger-sized version of the same thing I was optimistic since it had not one but two flavor packets – and a tiny fork!

Alas, once prepared it smelled just as bad as the brick version that I also reviewed last time. It’s a truly awful smell – like a dark old house – and difficult to ignore. The noodles had the consistency of electrical wiring and the taste was like dirty water. After three products by this manufacturer, I wonder who their audience is?

I’d give this maybe 1/10, but this score is tempered by the fact that KLS ate it! I therefore asked for her comments, and she said: “Bland and inoffensive, 4/10!”

Fireworks 2021

We let fireworks off for July 4! Since they’d been made illegal here in Albany we went to Rochester and let them off with J and J.

That’s most of them, and as you can see we had quite a few! Here’s some highlights:

Of course it was great fun; lots of sparks and noise and flashes. The entire neighborhood echoed with the sound of people letting off bigger fireworks, but we enjoyed our modest selection 🙂

We had a BBQ and ate too much as well.

We had no idea what some of the fireworks actually did and had a few nice surprises when they went high into the air or did something else spectacular. Here’s a compilation video:

It was a great evening. Happy July 4!